I'm find myself feeling gradually more and more confident within the classroom after completing Placement A and being back with my colleagues at Uni. As the course is progressing, all of these pedagogical terms, phrases and acronyms are really starting to sink in, and I can see how being a "reflective practitioner" is contributing to my development day by day. It's also great to see my colleagues experiencing the same thing and to observe how we're moving away from the shy, new trainees into professional purveyors of education. High 5s all 'round =D
This week I am in a different academy, looking at Y8s in particular. The trend so far seems to be that Y8 is nationally (if not internationally) the Year in which things start to 'dip,' particularly around attendance, aspirations and engagement. In fact, in asking a few friends and reflecting upon Y8 myself, we can't seem to remember much about that time at all... to us, and to many others, it seems a bit of a non-year.
The question I have been posed with is: how can Y8s regain their motivation for learning? They're no longer the babies of the school, and they haven't quite reached GCSE Options stage yet. To them, it's another year in the education cycle but it's also a time of change, particularly biologically.
Not identifying and intervening with 'the dip' can lead to a negative learning cycle, details of which I won't go into here as I need to do some more research first, but I would like to ask any readers these two questions:
- Can you remember what Year 8 was like for you? Do you agree that it was a year in which nothing much happened, or were your experiences different?
- If you teach now, what are your opinions on your current Year 8? How do you motivate them to remain impassioned by learning?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments. Thanks!
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